Halep ends Ana's Madrid run

Ana’s run at the Mutua Madrid Open was brought to an end following a 6-2, 6-2 defeat against world No.5 Simona Halep. Despite a brilliant start from the 26-year-old, she was unable to reproduce her fine form of the past few weeks and she crashed out in exactly one hour of play.

Nonetheless, Ana started the match brilliantly. She showed great aggression, confidently hit a handful of winners and she broke the Romanian at the first time of asking.

But all of those good signs suddenly fell apart as a sloppy third game, including two consecutive double faults and two unforced errors, was the prelude of a very flat and disjointed performance from the 11th seed. From 2-0 up, she lost seven straight games, and with them the first set. She was instantly broken in the opening game of the second act.

Ana piled up the unforced errors and was unable to cope with the depth of strokes from the world No 5. She managed to break back once, but was broken herself on two more occasions as she saw the match completely slipping away.

Ana will now head to Rome for the Internazionali BNL d’Italia, which begins on Monday.